Topping this year’s survey of academic researchers is the J. David Gladstone Institutes, a San Francisco-based nonprofit biomedical research organization with a focus on cardiovascular disease, virology and immunology, and neurodegenerative disorders

Shortly after a rat infested supply ship ran around in Lord Howe Island off the east coast of Australia in 1918, the newly introduced mammals wiped out the island's phasmids—stick insects the size of a human hand.